BACKBEAT BOOKS

Frequent EM contributor Jim Aikin's latest book is A Player's Guide to Chords and Harmony ($19.95), subtitled Music Theory for Real-World Musicians. Its 196 pages serve as a detailed introduction to music theory, written in a casual tone that manages to avoid the academic stiffness of many college-level textbooks.

Aikin approaches music theory on a practical level, applying time-honored notions of melody and harmony to modern musical forms such as rock, jazz, folk, and pop. He familiarizes the reader with intervals, scales, modes, and chords, while explaining how to read music transcriptions and interpret chord symbols. In addition, he demystifies voice leading and chord progressions. He gives the reader a vocabulary for communicating with other musicians and a conceptual framework for understanding the inner workings of music itself. Each of the eight chapters ends in a quiz, allowing you to demonstrate what you've learned. The answers are located in the appendix. For beginning or experienced musicians, or anyone who wants a deeper understanding of what makes music tick, Aikin's book can be a valuable and eye-opening resource. Backbeat Books; email: books@musicplayer.com; Web: www.backbeatbooks.com.

COURSE TECHNOLOGY PTR

For anyone who needs help getting the most from their music software, the Cool School Interactus (CSi) Starter Series (Mac/Win, $29.99 each) of CD-ROMs provides hands-on guidance. Titles include CSi Starters for Cubase SX 2, Digital Performer 4, GarageBand, Logic, Pro Tools LE, Reason, Sonar 3, and Sound Forge. Each course presents a series of QuickTime movies that cover topics such as setup, recording, editing, mixdown, creating audio CDs and MP3s, and file backup. Lengths vary from two to three hours. Just as the Starter Series is ideal for beginners, the CSi Master Series (Mac/Win, $49.99 each) is more suitable for intermediate to advanced users, with lengths from five to six hours.

In Logic CSi Starter, for example, narrator George Leger III begins by showing you how to use the Setup Assistant, set up an Autoload file, and specify preferences in Emagic Logic Pro and Logic Express. From there, you will learn how to import, record, and freeze audio and MIDI tracks; use the editing and automation tools; apply effects processing plug-ins; bus and bounce tracks; and prepare a project for final delivery. The disc provides over 2.5 hours of video tutorials, as well as quizzes that let you confirm what you've learned.

To run the CSi series on your PC, you'll need a minimum Pentium III/400 MHz, a 16-bit sound card, and Windows 98, ME, or XP. Mac users will need a Mac G3/300 MHz and either OS 9 or OS X 10.2. Both platforms require at least 32 MB RAM, 50 MB free disk space, and a 16x CD-ROM drive. Cool Breeze Systems/Course Technology PTR; email: ct.retail@thomson.com; Web: www.courseptr.com.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Peter Manning's Revised and Expanded Edition of Electronic and Computer Music ($35 softbound, $80 hardbound) is the second update of his classic text on the subject. Over the course of 474 pages, he discusses music technology in its many forms. Manning, a professor at the University of Durham in the UK, takes the approach of exploring his subject matter in a historical context, tracing its development from its roots to the present, beginning with Thaddeus Cahill's 1897 patent for the Telharmonium and continuing up to the present age of virtual synthesis and signal-processing software.

After a brief discussion of electronic music before 1945, he describes pioneering work in the classical tape studios of Europe and the U.S., early synthesizers and the contribution of rock in the 1960s, the development of digital audio and MIDI, and the use of desktop computers for music production. Along the way, Manning touches on many technical aspects without going into unnecessary detail. A section on performance controllers is especially interesting. Electronic and Computer Music is suitable as a classroom textbook or for anyone interesting in the history of synthesizers and computer music. Oxford University Press USA; email: music@oup-usa.org; Web: www.oup.com.